The state reported 108 positive cases of the coronavirus in Montgomery County on Saturday morning. Pending confirmation from local authorities and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, that means the county remains in “substantial transmission.”
That label is significant because senior officials said this week that the county’s indoor mask mandate would be reinstated if the county sees just one day of “substantial transmission.”
An indoor mask mandate was lifted at 12:01 a.m. Thursday, after the county reported seven straight days of “moderate transmission.”
But County Council Vice President Gabe Albornoz told Bethesda Beat Friday evening that he and his colleagues were waiting on an order from James Bridgers, the county’s acting health officer, which could propose an amendment to the Board of Health order that council members passed in early August, reinstating the mandate.
Albornoz said that amendment would likely ask council members to change the requirement for reinstating the mask mandate from one day of substantial transmission to seven straight days.
It’s unclear whether the mask mandate would be reinstated by that Tuesday meeting, if at all. Assistant Chief Administrative Officer Earl Stoddard told Bethesda Beat on Friday the mandate would likely not be reinstated over the weekend.
Stoddard did not immediately respond to a voicemail left on his cell phone Saturday morning.
Per CDC guidelines, “substantial transmission” is 50 to 99.99 new coronavirus cases per 100,000 people, over a seven-day period. “Moderate transmission” is defined as 10 to 49.99 new coronavirus cases per 100,000 people, over a seven-day period.
The county enters “substantial transmission” when it hits 50 cases or more per 100,000 people, calculated over a seven-day period. The county’s COVID-19 dashboard showed the county in “substantial transmission” as of Friday afternoon.
County Council Member Andrew Friedson wrote in a text message on Saturday that he had been working on proposing potential changes to the Board of Health order before the county entered substantial transmission on Friday.
Both he and Albornoz said the proposed changes to the Board of Health order are meant to avoid a “yo-yo effect” of the mask mandate being lifted and reinstated multiple times in a short time frame. Friedson said they were still waiting on Bridgers’ order as of Saturday morning.
County officials have previously said they need to confirm state and local data with CDC data before determining which state of transmission the county is in. If the CDC aligns with Saturday’s state data, the county will have experienced two straight days of “substantial transmission.”
According to the county’s COVID-19 dashboard, the county’s seven-day positivity rate was 1.4%, or “low transmission,” through Oct. 29.
Hospital bed utilization, intensive care unit bed utilization and COVID-related hospitalization were all in the “low utilization category,” according to the county’s dashboard as of Saturday morning.
According to the CDC, 91.1% of the county’s eligible population — those 12 years and older — are fully vaccinated, as of Saturday. Of the total population, 77.3% are fully vaccinated, and 85.8% had received at least one dose of a vaccine.
County now in 'substantial transmission' of coronavirus, pending CDC confirmation - BethesdaMagazine.com
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